Hi everyone, I've recently been arguing that Austria is extremely powerful, maybe even as strong as the Ottomans for WC, you just have to take advantage of their opening position and strong events and missions. One user asked me to play them on the new patch and write a guide if I still thought they were that powerful in SP. I'm to 1465 and have a union with Bohemia, 2/3 of the shadow kingdom land, and am gearing up for war to use the restoration of union CB on a Hungary allied with France. I thought I'd go ahead and jot this down before I go to bed.
Opening moves.
1: Check rivals, a rivalry from Poland, or Bohemia, maybe Hungary too, is a restart. Set your rivals as Venice + either France, Denmark, or England, depending on who rivaled you. Leave the third rival blank for now.
2. Marry & Ally Hungary, Poland, Castille, the Palatinate, and Saxony or Brandenburg (5 total).
Only marry Bohemia and Burgundy. (2 more) So yes, you're over your limit.
This isn't in order, make sure you get the marriages with interregnum countries ASAP.
3. Disband your transports. Send your one light ship to privateer the Genoa node. Start building light ships up to your force limit.
4. Kill your forts, this is SP you need that gold for other crud.
5. Take the mission to improve your Prestige.
6. Get the cheap inflation advisor from the Burghers and the cheap diplo rep advisor from the nobles, start farming your estates for mana, make sure you get at least 100 from each, getting 150 is nice but not required. If you're going to get the general from the nobility later, don't call a diet, let them be pissed, personally I just went with a poor general, but personal preference. Get a lvl 1 mil advisor, preferably discipline or morale, but any will do.
7. You start with a focus on Admin points, you need to shift to either no focus or Mil points, I usually go no focus, but that's personal preference, don't forget you'll be stuck with it for a while, and you'll be low on points with all three kinds of mana for a while with this start.
8. Lower maintenance on your army to where you're just barely making a penny on the balance sheet, you're going to want to be able to get them to full morale ASAP. Sit them next to Bohemia's border in groups that won't take attrition damage.
9. Get the gold mine in Tirol up to 10 production.
10. Make sure your message settings are set up so you get a pop up for every new ruler that shows up. It's annoying I know, but you need it.
11. Balance beginning to build relationships with your allies and getting claims on Venice. You need three of their provinces plus returning Brescia to Milan to prevent the shadow kingdom. AE sucks for the first 50 years, if you can get claims on all three it'll be better. Get at least one of the claims you need to prevent the shadow kingdom from the Papal states too. You want to have the CB so you can take advantage of a moment of weakness. Ideally, get claims on all possible needed provinces. From the popeman you need all the Italian provinces.
12. Sit on speed three or so watch for pop ups from Bohemia, Hungary, and Poland.
You want Poland to take the event that gives them the PU on Lit, if they choose a local noble that's a restart/alt+f4, if they naturally get an heir it'll probably be from your dynasty, you probably won't have a good opening until at least a 1500 to take advantage, and it weakens one of your better allies, so that's probably a restart/alt+f4 but that's personal preference, I'm going to be writing this assuming they took the PU over Lit though.
Watch for Hungary, they usually get a scripted heir, Ladislaus the Posthumous. You want this. If they get some random other person from your dynasty that's fine too, but break the alliance immediately if that happens. I haven't seen them get a different heir in a few games but it may happen, if it does you'll want to be ready to force a PU quickly. I'm writing this assuming they have Ladislaus, just for simplicity's sake.
With Bohemia you're watching for them to get a ruler from your dynasty. They can also get an event that gives them a pretty strong ruler, but you won't be able to force a PU if they get it. If they get the event your choices are to restart/alt+f4 or to wait til 1500 and make sure Boh doesn't get above 140 development. Use the ledger to keep an eye on it, if they do, use the unlawful territory CB to force them back down to 100 dev or so. I'd also try to make sure they hang on to their gold mine, it's basically the only reason they're worth this much trouble. After 1500 as long as they have less than 140 dev you can get a mission to force them into a PU. Keep recycling missions until you get it.
War with Bohemia:
Assuming Boh got the ruler from your dynasty, immediately save and raise maintenance on your army. If they get the event for the other ruler now I'd definitely just alt+f4 and go back to this save. Also immediately go to the diplo screen and claim their throne.
Wait until a first of the month where your armies are either full morale or close. Declare Boh as your third rival and immediately declare war using the claim throne CB. Try to rush Praha to get a stack wipe before their army can recover from being at low maintenance, if you miss it don't worry about it, just be careful while you split up to start seiging them down. If you get it then you don't have to worry. Usually in my games Bohemia doesn't have allies that are too scary, Saxony or Brandenburg is about as annoying as it gets they'll generally agree to peace out if you can get one of their forts seiged down or get a stack wipe, just make sure you keep an eye out for them and don't let them snap up one of your armies by itself. You can sometimes offer Poland land to help you, but you start with the biggest army in the game, you really don't need them 90% of the time and any land you give them hurts the HRE, you also really want to keep them for an ally. So breaking a promise for land is a bad option.
Don't drag this war out, you can force the union at 84% warscore, and Bohemia's army will then be yours, you don't want it weak. When I finished fighting this out now I still had 35k manpower, and that was with no stack wipes and a general that only had one pip in shock, and one in seige.
Preparing for Venice
1. Immediately after the last war start improving relations with Boh, if your ruler dies and you're at negative relations you'll have to fight to restore the union all over again.
2. You should have completed the mission for prestige now, for the rest of the time until you revoke the priveligia focus on missions that give mana or help in the HRE, don't be afraid to recycle missions if nothing is there that you'll complete quickly. Every 10 years or so you'll get a mission to improve relations with one of the electors that doesn't like you, you want to keep cycling missions so you get these as soon as the modifier from the last one runs out, that way you hang on to the extra 10% IA modifier from this.
3. Get your army next to Venice's border, again don't go any lower on Maintenance than it takes to stay in positive cash flow.
4. Go ahead and check the declare war screen and see what the alliance situation looks like. I got ridiculously lucky in my game and Venice had gotten events to go into negative diplo rep so no one would honor a CTA, but generally they're in a trade league with OPMs and allied to Genoa. Sometimes it makes sense to offer land to Hungary if Venice lucked into enough alliances that they will be a pain, but again you start with the largest army in the game, you should be okay. Also make sure you check the tech situation, if they've gotten mil tech 4 you'll need to wait til you catch up, otherwise you'll blow a lot of extra manpower for no good reason. If everything looks good though, get your light ships home and attack.
5. The war with Venice should be easier than the war with Boh, pick off the OPM ally armies for easy stack wipes, and Venice is often distracted trying to conquer Byzantium or Albania about now, giving you time to siege down the fort across from Venetia. Check the ledger but you should be pretty safe to have a couple of sieges going at once, and when you've improved Boh's relations enough to get that LD down, they'll come help too. Keep an eye on getting the OPM allies out of the war, and don't forget to have Genoa release Corsica when you go to separate peace them. Extra princes are always good for IA gain.
6. You'll probably get to the point you've taken all of Venice that you can walk through, including Dalmatia if you get Mil access through Hun, but not Venetia. If you built up your navy to your force limit then be patient. The AI tends to be pretty dumb and will take most of their navy off for no good reason. When they do, send your navy to kill the random ships they left behind, and have a big enough army ready to cross the straight, even with the defensive bonus Venice will get. Once you take Venetia Venice will give you whatever you want.
7. Peace deal: If you occupied Venice you should be able to take all the land you need for the shadow kingdom and return Brescia to Milan for the same purpose. You'll probably get a small coalition from this. If you got Venice, go ahead and take this deal anyway. Pick up all the cash and extras that don't cause AE you want on top. If you promised Hungary land you can ignore it, you should be breaking your alliance soon anyway.
If you couldn't take Venice, you're going to be short on time. This will take a second war. LEAVE Venice the province that you can walk to that has the fort. It's good for extra warscore if you have the same problem next war. Also consider NOT taking anything other than the Shadow kingdom land you can grab, including NOT taking gold. You might not want the higher truce timer.
I'll write up more on the wars to grab Hungary and the Papal states tomorrow.
This is my first time writing a strat guide, please leave me any comments you have.
Opening moves.
1: Check rivals, a rivalry from Poland, or Bohemia, maybe Hungary too, is a restart. Set your rivals as Venice + either France, Denmark, or England, depending on who rivaled you. Leave the third rival blank for now.
2. Marry & Ally Hungary, Poland, Castille, the Palatinate, and Saxony or Brandenburg (5 total).
Only marry Bohemia and Burgundy. (2 more) So yes, you're over your limit.
This isn't in order, make sure you get the marriages with interregnum countries ASAP.
3. Disband your transports. Send your one light ship to privateer the Genoa node. Start building light ships up to your force limit.
4. Kill your forts, this is SP you need that gold for other crud.
5. Take the mission to improve your Prestige.
6. Get the cheap inflation advisor from the Burghers and the cheap diplo rep advisor from the nobles, start farming your estates for mana, make sure you get at least 100 from each, getting 150 is nice but not required. If you're going to get the general from the nobility later, don't call a diet, let them be pissed, personally I just went with a poor general, but personal preference. Get a lvl 1 mil advisor, preferably discipline or morale, but any will do.
7. You start with a focus on Admin points, you need to shift to either no focus or Mil points, I usually go no focus, but that's personal preference, don't forget you'll be stuck with it for a while, and you'll be low on points with all three kinds of mana for a while with this start.
8. Lower maintenance on your army to where you're just barely making a penny on the balance sheet, you're going to want to be able to get them to full morale ASAP. Sit them next to Bohemia's border in groups that won't take attrition damage.
9. Get the gold mine in Tirol up to 10 production.
10. Make sure your message settings are set up so you get a pop up for every new ruler that shows up. It's annoying I know, but you need it.
11. Balance beginning to build relationships with your allies and getting claims on Venice. You need three of their provinces plus returning Brescia to Milan to prevent the shadow kingdom. AE sucks for the first 50 years, if you can get claims on all three it'll be better. Get at least one of the claims you need to prevent the shadow kingdom from the Papal states too. You want to have the CB so you can take advantage of a moment of weakness. Ideally, get claims on all possible needed provinces. From the popeman you need all the Italian provinces.
12. Sit on speed three or so watch for pop ups from Bohemia, Hungary, and Poland.
You want Poland to take the event that gives them the PU on Lit, if they choose a local noble that's a restart/alt+f4, if they naturally get an heir it'll probably be from your dynasty, you probably won't have a good opening until at least a 1500 to take advantage, and it weakens one of your better allies, so that's probably a restart/alt+f4 but that's personal preference, I'm going to be writing this assuming they took the PU over Lit though.
Watch for Hungary, they usually get a scripted heir, Ladislaus the Posthumous. You want this. If they get some random other person from your dynasty that's fine too, but break the alliance immediately if that happens. I haven't seen them get a different heir in a few games but it may happen, if it does you'll want to be ready to force a PU quickly. I'm writing this assuming they have Ladislaus, just for simplicity's sake.
With Bohemia you're watching for them to get a ruler from your dynasty. They can also get an event that gives them a pretty strong ruler, but you won't be able to force a PU if they get it. If they get the event your choices are to restart/alt+f4 or to wait til 1500 and make sure Boh doesn't get above 140 development. Use the ledger to keep an eye on it, if they do, use the unlawful territory CB to force them back down to 100 dev or so. I'd also try to make sure they hang on to their gold mine, it's basically the only reason they're worth this much trouble. After 1500 as long as they have less than 140 dev you can get a mission to force them into a PU. Keep recycling missions until you get it.
War with Bohemia:
Assuming Boh got the ruler from your dynasty, immediately save and raise maintenance on your army. If they get the event for the other ruler now I'd definitely just alt+f4 and go back to this save. Also immediately go to the diplo screen and claim their throne.
Wait until a first of the month where your armies are either full morale or close. Declare Boh as your third rival and immediately declare war using the claim throne CB. Try to rush Praha to get a stack wipe before their army can recover from being at low maintenance, if you miss it don't worry about it, just be careful while you split up to start seiging them down. If you get it then you don't have to worry. Usually in my games Bohemia doesn't have allies that are too scary, Saxony or Brandenburg is about as annoying as it gets they'll generally agree to peace out if you can get one of their forts seiged down or get a stack wipe, just make sure you keep an eye out for them and don't let them snap up one of your armies by itself. You can sometimes offer Poland land to help you, but you start with the biggest army in the game, you really don't need them 90% of the time and any land you give them hurts the HRE, you also really want to keep them for an ally. So breaking a promise for land is a bad option.
Don't drag this war out, you can force the union at 84% warscore, and Bohemia's army will then be yours, you don't want it weak. When I finished fighting this out now I still had 35k manpower, and that was with no stack wipes and a general that only had one pip in shock, and one in seige.
Preparing for Venice
1. Immediately after the last war start improving relations with Boh, if your ruler dies and you're at negative relations you'll have to fight to restore the union all over again.
2. You should have completed the mission for prestige now, for the rest of the time until you revoke the priveligia focus on missions that give mana or help in the HRE, don't be afraid to recycle missions if nothing is there that you'll complete quickly. Every 10 years or so you'll get a mission to improve relations with one of the electors that doesn't like you, you want to keep cycling missions so you get these as soon as the modifier from the last one runs out, that way you hang on to the extra 10% IA modifier from this.
3. Get your army next to Venice's border, again don't go any lower on Maintenance than it takes to stay in positive cash flow.
4. Go ahead and check the declare war screen and see what the alliance situation looks like. I got ridiculously lucky in my game and Venice had gotten events to go into negative diplo rep so no one would honor a CTA, but generally they're in a trade league with OPMs and allied to Genoa. Sometimes it makes sense to offer land to Hungary if Venice lucked into enough alliances that they will be a pain, but again you start with the largest army in the game, you should be okay. Also make sure you check the tech situation, if they've gotten mil tech 4 you'll need to wait til you catch up, otherwise you'll blow a lot of extra manpower for no good reason. If everything looks good though, get your light ships home and attack.
5. The war with Venice should be easier than the war with Boh, pick off the OPM ally armies for easy stack wipes, and Venice is often distracted trying to conquer Byzantium or Albania about now, giving you time to siege down the fort across from Venetia. Check the ledger but you should be pretty safe to have a couple of sieges going at once, and when you've improved Boh's relations enough to get that LD down, they'll come help too. Keep an eye on getting the OPM allies out of the war, and don't forget to have Genoa release Corsica when you go to separate peace them. Extra princes are always good for IA gain.
6. You'll probably get to the point you've taken all of Venice that you can walk through, including Dalmatia if you get Mil access through Hun, but not Venetia. If you built up your navy to your force limit then be patient. The AI tends to be pretty dumb and will take most of their navy off for no good reason. When they do, send your navy to kill the random ships they left behind, and have a big enough army ready to cross the straight, even with the defensive bonus Venice will get. Once you take Venetia Venice will give you whatever you want.
7. Peace deal: If you occupied Venice you should be able to take all the land you need for the shadow kingdom and return Brescia to Milan for the same purpose. You'll probably get a small coalition from this. If you got Venice, go ahead and take this deal anyway. Pick up all the cash and extras that don't cause AE you want on top. If you promised Hungary land you can ignore it, you should be breaking your alliance soon anyway.
If you couldn't take Venice, you're going to be short on time. This will take a second war. LEAVE Venice the province that you can walk to that has the fort. It's good for extra warscore if you have the same problem next war. Also consider NOT taking anything other than the Shadow kingdom land you can grab, including NOT taking gold. You might not want the higher truce timer.
I'll write up more on the wars to grab Hungary and the Papal states tomorrow.
This is my first time writing a strat guide, please leave me any comments you have.
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